Effects of Psychostimulants and Antipsychotics on Serum Lipids in an Animal Model for Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia (SCZ) treatment is essentially limited to the use of typical or atypical antipsychotic drugs, which suppress the main symptoms of this mental disorder. Metabolic syndrome is often reported in patients with SCZ under long-term drug treatment, but little is known about the alteration of lipid metabolism induced by antipsychotic use. In this study, we evaluated the blood serum lipids of a validated animal model for SCZ (Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat, SHR), and a normal control rat strain (Normotensive Wistar Rat, NWR), after long-term treatment (30 days) with typical haloperidol (HAL) or atypical clozapine (CLZ) antipsychotics. Moreover, psychostimulants, amphetamine (AMPH) or lisdexamfetamine (LSDX), were administered to NWR animals aiming to mimic the human first episode of psychosis, and the effects on serum lipids were also evaluated. Discrepancies in lipids between SHR and NWR animals, which included increased total lipids and decreased phospholipids in SHR compared with NWR, were similar to the differences previously reported for SCZ patients relative to healthy controls. Administration of psychostimulants in NWR decreased omega-3, which was also decreased in the first episode of psychosis of SCZ. Moreover, choline glycerophospholipids allowed us to distinguish the effects of CLZ in SHR. Thus, changes in the lipid metabolism in SHR seem to be reversed by the long-term treatment with the atypical antipsychotic CLZ, which was under the same condition described to reverse the SCZ-like endophenotypes of this validated animal model for SCZ. These data open new insights for understanding the potential influence of the treatment with typical or atypical antipsychotics on circulating lipids. This may represent an outcome effect from metabolic pathways that regulate lipids synthesis and breakdown, which may be reflecting a cell lipids dysfunction in SCZ.